Grub

Wow, that was almost a downright distressing episode. First, they had to create new ice cream flavors for the quick fire challenge, only to arrive and discover that the audience was made up of about 90% children... Then Betty chewed out Marcel during the main challenge like a rabid wolverine. With the ice cream challenge, You gotta know your audience, so to not tell them that they're cooking almost exclusively for children just doesn't make sense to me. I'm no expert, but I think children do not have as developed a pallete as adults, nor do they tend to have the same culinary experience -- on the other hand, they're more likely to be open to unusual color combinations and general wackiness on a plate. I don't think the average adult American would accept bacon flavored ice cream -- but I think far fewer children would do so. On the other hand, I DID think it was funny to see one of the cooks be clever/deceitful and make a point of telling the kids about certain ingredients, while telling adults about the other ingredients. During Marcel's main challenge, the frialator had dropped in temperature too much for him to do his onion rings, and there was a low-key, barely noticeable exchange between him and Betty. But when he was done, he asked her if she thought it was far that he couldn't use the deep fryer, and she responded with something like, "Yeah, I think it's fair. Anything that fucks you up, is fair by me." Next thing, Betty was up, and she couldn't get her cheese sandwiches going, so Marcel started taunting her about it. Oh boy... Betty's BravoTV bio describes her as a "loud, crazy, and no-holds-barred chef" -- well bollocks to that. Marcel is 26 and Betty 44 -- I'd clock them somewhere around 13, emotionally, and for a 44-year old, that's a lot worse. And to be able do dole the shit out, but not be able to take it -- whoa, that's real bad. I realize Marcel is irritating, but that's just pitiful.

Beccaboo, Shalmanese, good catch... Damn newspapers and their fact checking...

This is a pretty poor defense. It quotes a NY Times article that claims, "she is really trafficking in the ultimate modern luxury: time" and rounds it up with the completely insane argument that Paris Hilton is more deserving of scorn and derision. The first argument can be made for Sandra Lee -- or for ordering a pizza. And for the second one, what the hell does SHE have to do with cooking? (I have a sinking sensation as a I write this -- has FN booked Paris Hilton for a show?)

Spoiler alert for episode two... . . . So, who can tell me the difference between a traitor and a whistle-blower? What happened was, as team Korea exited the store after bying their ingredients for the elimination challenge, Otto was caught on tape making the comment "I think we got those lychee for free" to Marisa. Some time into the cooking process, Marisa told Tom about it, who confronted Otto, and Otto went back to the store to return it (oddly, during the judgement, they showed some "confessional" interviews where team members complained that Otto was gone for a long time while they were cooking). Otto appologized and bowed out. Maybe I missed something, but if the team left with stuff they didn't pay for, wouldn't that be the responsibility of the entire team? Obviously, if Otto discovered it, but didn't do anything to correct it, shame on him -- but if every other member of the team failed to discover it, shame on them, too. And doubly so on Marisa for not discovering it, but after being told about it, still didn't do anything about it -- except of course back at the base, when she could save her own ass by informing on Otto. As I said, I might have missed something, but this didn't seem right to me. Sometimes you are overcharged, and sometimes you're undercharged -- I reckon it evens out in the end. This totally reminded me of the incident in the first series where the Irish dude used his finger to taste a sauce. Ie., they made a lot of hoopla because this is on TV. I see zero points being handed out for team spirit here. And I guess it makes sense that the contestants act that way, but in turn, that means that these team challenges are completely meaningless -- and are merely a ploy to create conflict.

Fantastic trip report -- thank you. Did you find out what the deal was, with those faux-folk pictures? How did it get started, and for what reason?

Double Chocolate Biscotti: Those are white chocolate chips -- not nuts, btw.

Full story here on news.com.au

That's the one where he raises turkeys, and then pigs, right? That show has a much more interesting format, than anything else I've seen... I like how the main show is separated by a bunch of repeating segments, like the roaming investigator checking out unusual foods, teaching a non-cook to cook, the cooking challenge, and the turkey/pigs etc. Good stuff.

Padma is a big improvement -- I mean, she's actually written a prize-winning cook book, so from where I'm seeing it, at least it's not just another gig, to her. And two examples isn't enough sampling material to draw any conclusions on, but still -- first Billy Joel's wife, then Shalman Rushdie's wife... How do they pick their hosts -- do they throw darts at a wall covered with famous people, and then offer the job to their spouse?

Well, another update... I was recruited as an entremetier during a recent culinary event (ie., a buddy wuz charring up some steaks and asked if I could do some of them roasted tater wedges again), and I thought okay, this time, I'll follow the Blumenthal recipe to a letter, and not add anything to the flour -- but instead add thyme and rosemary halfway through the roasting process... But then I thought, "ah, screw that." So... I added just some cayenne pepper to the flour -- and only cooked them for about 45 minutes. Well, that worked out great. I still wanna do the rosemary/thyme thing, but I'll probably do the curry flavored thing before that. Adding spices to the flour that you dust the wedges with DOES work -- you just gotta be careful not to roast them too long, or at too high temperatures.

From ATram's pointer, it's from this thread.

I noticed an interesting bit of editing... After the elimination challenge, when the four best cooks were brought out and the winner announced, two of the "losers" looked appropriately, politely happy for the winner. But Mia looked PISSED. I mean, she really donned a sour face. Then, a second later, the four walked back into the kitchen, and Mia looked perfectly cheerful. What the hell was that? Marcel "They voted against me because they're afraid of me" -- what kinda hairdo is THAT? He looks like the fucking Wolverine. And then there's Frankie "The Bull" Terzoli, who's working on his Sicilian cookbook, "Good Food, Good Wine, Good Friends -- or else I'm a-gonna breakin' yo fucken' kneecaps, vafancolo!" Quite a cast, that.

Beautiful. Absolutely fantastic. And yeah, I look forward to seeing what you cook in that thing, too.

An update on an experiment... I tried this again, with two batches -- one with hot paprika and garlic powder, and another with a mixture of roasted cumin and coriander seeds, black peppercorns, hot dried chili peppers and cinnamon, and tumeric... The roasting process killed most of the flavors... So I don't think that's a good way to go. Oh well.

I tried following that Fat Duck recipe (sans the garlic and rosemary), and it came out great... The dusting of flour created an almost "fuzzy" texture on the surface, which added to the amazing crispiness. I'm definitely doing this again -- with the garlic and rosemary, but maybe also a batch with things like paprika or cayenne garlic salt added to the flour. One odd problem I've always had with roasting potatoes is that the (peeled) potato wedges will form a "skin." The skin will then separate from the potato, forming an air bubble underneath. This leaves the skin tough and leathery, rather than crispy and fragile... Well, this recipe makes for some great, crispy skin.

I'm afraid I've got nothing to contribute, but just wanted to say that this is an excellent thread. I never felt very comfortable, cooking onions -- never felt as if I knew what I was doing... These posts go a long way to explain things. Very cool. Thanks.

Oops, ya forgot one: Religiosity - Fruit from the Tree of Knowledge //RIMSHOT!// Thank you, thank you! I'll be here all week. Don't forget to tip the veal, and try the waitress.

Elia Aboumrad's bio starts off with "Elia is a Latin firecracker..." Nice.

Oh yeah, hell yeah -- I'm with Marcia on that one; it looks delicious. But yeah, it would probably -- in a completely subjective way -- look and taste better, the colder the weather might happen to be on that particular day...

Oh, nice one! Maybe it's Pig Pickin' Veronique? Proper fusion cuisine. Hehehe.

Mutating germs, super-oxygen, and pathogen-killin' -- oh my! If my chemestry classes had been this exciting, maybe I'd learned something. Sadly, they weren't, and I didn't -- hence, I have no idea what these guys are talking about here. Still, in spite of my ignorance of chemistry, it sounds like BS to me...

Hold on there -- Gin and Tonic was invented by the British in India, as a way to obtain quinine (from the tonic), to fight off malaraia.

Okay, so I had another go at it... I'm still somewhat perplexed about what someone mentioned though -- if the dough gets though due to too much folding, how is puff pastry made? Isn't it made by folding the dough a lot? I took advice from a few different areas this time around -- in addition to the flour, butter, salt and water, I also added some white wine vinegar and some baking soda. Also, I grated frozen butter, instead of working chunks of butter into the flour, like I did last time. The result was really quite good. It was very crispy and flakey (and tasty), but I think possibly, it might have been a little thougher, or heavier, than commercial puff pastry... Anyhow, here's a closeup of a bit of leftover dough that I baked -- very poorly focused shot, but you can see how it has puffed up and created layers (and that's with NO folding whatsoever): And here's the fillet fully baked (with my oh-so artistic knifey slices): Another bit of advice I took, was to place the "stuffing" inside the fillet, rather than just on top. Slicing the fillet horizontally was no problem. My choice of filling was perhaps not the best -- sautéed onions, garlic and anchovy paste mixed in cream cheese (I just heard of Pasta Puttanesca -- you gotta like a recipe with such a name -- Whore's Pasta, hehehe) was a little robust. But not overwhelming, though. The overwhelming part of the meal, was handled by the blue cheese sauce... Well, here's the thing plated: I WAS gonna do a Hollandaise sauce, but since I did that the last time, I figured I'd try something different... Idiot decision... A white sauce, and white vegetables -- duh. I'd absent-mindedly thought I'd get a yellow-ish cheese sauce and pour that over the cauliflower, but then I realized the only suitable cheese I had, was blue cheese. Seeing that they were both white, it would look too weird, so I plated the salmon on top of the sauce, which in turn made sure that the sauce could overwhelm it... (I dove into the veggie drawer in a desperate search for some additional color, and came up with some parsley. Hoorah parsley!) Oh dear. Looking at this, I'm thinking about doing a dinner party and only serve white food -- or some other uniform color. We eat with our eyes, so I'm wondering how that'd effect people... There's an amazing building north of San Diego; a Mormon Temple, that's completely white. I tried to go inside, but didn't get very far. There was a couple there, standing guard. Both very smartly dressed, except they were dressed in completely white clothing. White tie, white shirt, white jacket, white shoes, socks -- absolutely everything white. Equal parts neat, weird and eerie. I think I wanna do the same thing, on a plate. Taters, broccoli, bechamel sauce and some white protein. Cod, chicken, pork. Hmmm.

How about some Lassi? I definitely agree about the Dal. And hey -- could you please share the recipes for the Pork Vindaloo and the potato curry?

I always thought that snobbishness was bad. Having grown up in an uneducated family, in a small town, but having gotten myself some edumajacation, and read some books, and travelled around the world a bit, I realized that my initual, knee-jerk thought (that snobbishness was bad) was correct -- but far more importantly, I realized that there are a few things that are far worse. On a scale, I'd rank 'em: 3) Snobbishness: Patronizing someone because you're better educated, read, travelled, intelligent, informed or whatnot... Yeah, those qualities are all good, and people should be encouraged to persue such things -- but if all you do with your "knowledge" and "insight" is to belittle people, you're harming the cause. This is the pompous, upperclass twit. 2) Provincial snobbery: Patronizing someone because you think that you know more than others (but are wrong about it). However pathetic and embarassing snobbery might be, provincial snobbery is worse. This is the world where The Emeror's New Clothes live. Provincial snobbery can easily be confused with genuine snobbery, if you grew up in the provinces. 1) Anti-Snobbery: Patronizing someone because you suspect that they might know more than you -- and accusing them of snobbery. This is by far the worst. This would be the world where the jock beats the nerd, except you don't even need to be a semi-successful jock to field this argument -- you can know nothing, and you can have achieved nothing -- yet, you can still, somehow offer this as a valid argument: "You're a snob!" This is the Jante Law. It is the worst. It is important to have a good bullshit-detector. But calling snobbery on this thing, isn't right. Methinks there are perfectly valid arguments to be made for and against this thing, but accusing the detractors of snobbery -- of arrogance -- isn't right.